How to travel with others

Traveling with other people is an amazing way of exploring new places and share experiences about what you’ve just seen but it can also be a bit of a problem if you haven’t talked about your habits, needs and wantings throughout the trip beforehand. Traveling can be hard sometimes because you’re out doing stuff most of the time. When exploring and discovering every day, you’ll just become very tired at some point and your travel partner will probably be as well which is why it’s important to talk about how to travel together, especially how to manage situations where everyone are tired and annoyed.

Now I’ve tried traveling a lot both by myself and with others, and obviously it’s not always easy switching from going solo to being accompanied by friends. When you travel with other people you will quickly learn your differences in the way you travel. Suddenly you’re with this person 24/7 and you’re bound to hit a few bumps along the way. For instance when I’m traveling with my boyfriend he always wants to treat me to good deals on lovely hotels and delicious food in clean restaurants, whereas I’m more focused on saving money (to travel even more! Yay) and therefore I prefer eating from the food stalls on the sidewalk, if I’m eating anything at all, and then staying in cheap hostels with bamboo mattresses on the floor.

How to travel together then? I’m glad you asked. Compromise is a big part of it. Let me tell you more about it through my personal experience with my boyfriend.

First, I promised him that we could stay in nice places sometimes but that I also need the relaxed hostel-backpacker feeling to it. I like to socialize and I know by experience that two people on the road (even when you like the other person very much), sometimes, you just want to see other faces too, and the best place to do that is in the hostels.

Then I told him that to save money but still eat nicely, I would bring my own oatmeal which we could eat for breakfast, and then we could eat nicer during the other meals. I do this both to save a bit of cash but also because choosing three times a day what you feel like eating, is just too much for me (Not the biggest fan of eating new exotic things).
He also did agree on eating in the streets, mostly because it’s a big cultural thing in Asia, eating, I mean. Let’s not kid ourselves, some of the best food in Asia is found on the street. At least that’s what I’ve heard.

Because he was going to choose where we should stay most of the time, I was going to plan where we should go and what we should do. Don’t know if this sounds fair to you guys but I’ve been traveling a lot and he’s very open because it’s me. I do have to say that my independent travel experience has been in the way a few times during these weeks of planning, because I’m used to me deciding everything, so I think he’s doing best in being large because then I have time to learn how to compromise more.

Anyway, we’re probably going to change these plans on our way because that’s what happens when you travel. You stop and talk with other travelers on the road who will tell you that you have to see this or that place, or you simply discover another beautiful adventure along the way.

Well, back to the whole point of this post. The best advice I can give to you is that if it’s the first time travelling with someone, if it’s a friend, sister, mother, bf etc., talk about it. It’s such a big factor that you learn how the other person likes to travel and remember to compromise! Also you should bring your own devices, earplugs and a book. It’s normal to be annoyed with each other sometimes. Alone-time is very important for everyone to cope with all the new things on the road.

Good luck and see you on the other side 😀 let me know how it goes in the comment section!

Lingling

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My name is Lena and I’m a Danish-blooded China-lover. Wow, okay that sounded quite random. I know, I get that often, let me explain. I was once just a happy girl in Denmark but then I got bored in my comfort zone so I went to China. China was all the trouble I didn’t know I needed in my life.

Since then, I've learned Chinese and been in China for four years. Now, located in Beijing where I study and work.

My mission as a blogger is to tell you about China, maybe even enough to fall in love with this amazing dragon-country, who knows, right? Hope you’ll enjoy my posts on China and travel and remember if you have any questions, feel free to hunt me down and send me a message.